Once upon a time, right here in this land, a writer and a choreographer cooked up a fairy tale.

No, really. Jason Powell and Dani Kuepper have joined hands to tell Powell's story "The Quest" through words, modern dance and music, some of it sung by the Chant Claire Chamber Choir under Benjamin Bedroske's direction.

"I had two images in my head — the beginning and the ending of the story," he explained in a recent interview. "It seemed to me that a modern dance aesthetic was going to be the best way to tell the story. I didn't see any point in doing it as a story or a straight play."

Those images and the modern dance idea led him to a conversation with Kuepper.

"Jason came to me about two years ago and said he was going to write a brand-new fairy tale to be narrated by himself, with the characters dancing their parts," Kuepper said recently.

Out of their conversations came the idea to present the fairy tale in much the same way one might read such a tale.

"When you read a children's fairy tale, you read one page and have one image to refer for quite a bit of time," Kuepper said. It occurred to her that the best way to support and illuminate Powell's spoken words would be with stylized pantomime and dance, seen in a sort of freeze-frame effect that would mimic images on a storybook page.

Saying he is using "archetypal fairy tale characters," including a troll, a jester, a witch, a dragon, a knight and so on, Powell said there are twists, including a "Sleeping Beauty" character whose narcolepsy hinders her quest.

Calling the show, "family friendly, silly, and over-the-top physical," Kuepper added that eight children will perform with the dancers. She said she is fortunate to have company members who are "game to try anything, no matter how silly or ridiculous."

Powell has written the show in verse — that's right, an old-school rhyming fairy tale — and has also written much of the music for the show. He will perform a good deal of that music himself.

As to the style of the show's music, Powell said, "Old, really old ... like some of the Christmas carols that have been around for hundreds of years."

In addition, Bedroske and the Chant Claire Chamber Choir will sing some of Powell's music along with such tunes as Eric Whitacre's gorgeous "Sleep."

Wait for it ... The End.

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Keep up with the art scene and trends in urban design with art and architecture critic Mary Louise Schumacher. Every week, you'll get the latest reviews, musings on architecture and her picks for what to do on the weekends.